


leave before the lights come on

by deoxyribonucleotide



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Friends With Benefits, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:47:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deoxyribonucleotide/pseuds/deoxyribonucleotide
Summary: “Listen, Dejun, are you dating someone right now?”Dejun takes the time to eat a forkful of pasta. “No,” he says, decisive. It’s too soon for him to be dating anyone, isn’t it? The whole fiasco with Yukhei had happened only two months ago. “Why’d you ask?”This time, Yangyang sounds a touch more unsure. “Nothing,” he admits, but it clearly isn’t nothing, because he follows it up with, “I just thought… who’s that guy I keep seeing around your flat, then?”“That guy?” Dejun repeats. For a moment, he’s unsure of who Yangyang is talking about, and then it hits him—“Oh. That’s just Kunhang.”
Relationships: Wong Kun Hang | Hendery/Xiao De Jun | Xiao Jun
Comments: 27
Kudos: 445





	leave before the lights come on

**Author's Note:**

> For your consideration: these pictures of Dejun ([one](https://i.imgur.com/1r2tMTE.jpg) and [two](https://i.imgur.com/W8eg9SL.png)) and these pictures of Kunhang ([one](https://i.imgur.com/2fPSMQW.png), [two](https://i.imgur.com/XBhGMRH.png), [three](https://i.imgur.com/wFmSo4F.png), and [four](https://i.imgur.com/IkRLC1a.png)).
> 
> Fic title is from the [Arctic Monkeys song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEukS2YN9B8) of the same name.
> 
>  _200805 Update:_ I edited things a bit haha i love yall x

The question comes completely unprompted, because that is Yangyang’s style. He’s the type to ask the most random questions, so it doesn’t shock Dejun too much when Yangyang asks, “Listen, Dejun, are you dating someone right now?”

Dejun takes the time to eat a forkful of pasta. “No,” he says, decisive. It’s too soon for him to be dating anyone, isn’t it? The whole fiasco with Yukhei had happened only two months ago. “Why’d you ask?”

This time, Yangyang sounds a touch more unsure. “Nothing,” he admits, but it clearly isn’t nothing, because he follows it up with, “I just thought… who’s that guy I keep seeing around your flat, then?”

“That guy?” Dejun repeats. For a moment, he’s unsure of who Yangyang is talking about, and then it hits him—“Oh. That’s just Kunhang.”

  


* * *

  


Dejun wasn’t lying when he told Yangyang that. Kunhang is a guy. Just a guy. A friend of a friend whom he’s known of for a semester but only talked to recently.

He only knew Kunhang through Renjun, and the first time they properly met was at a party. Renjun was with Kunhang and a couple of his other friends. Smiling, Renjun took the liberty of introducing them one by one—“This is Mark, the one kissing him is Donghyuck, that one’s Jaemin, this is Jeno, and this,” Renjun pointed at the only one out of them that didn’t seem close to falling over, “is Kunhang.”

“Hi,” Dejun had said. He could scarcely hear himself over the pounding music. “I’m Dejun.”

And that was that. Unlike Renjun who had come with a group of friends, Dejun was alone. It had been about a week since he and Yukhei had broken up. Not only was that a sordid affair he’d rather not speak of again, thank you very much, it was also something that, at the time, he had yet to fully recover from. The day before, he’d asked Ten about what to do about it and he’d told Dejun that the fastest way to get over someone was to get under someone else. And so, with a logic that seemed undeniable, Dejun had come to the bar, gotten a couple of shots of tequila in his system, and started _looking_.

Dejun talked for a while with Renjun and his other friends, but it quickly became clear that they were one shot—or maybe six shots—too deep. The party, it turned out, had started earlier for them; they’d been drinking since their classes ended at six PM, and it was already nearing one in the morning. Renjun had apologized then, because he had to “deposit all these low-tolerance fuckers at the dorm.”

But it was fine for Dejun, because Kunhang didn’t leave with them. Kunhang had come later so he wasn’t _that_ drunk, and he was really fucking hot in that black shirt, patent leather pants, and combat boots combination of his. Scratch that—Kunhang was just really fucking hot, period. His long dark hair framed his perfect face: dark eyes and a hint of eyeshadow, high cheekbones and lips Dejun wanted nothing more than to taste. Fucking hell. Dejun threw back another shot, and then, giggling, he turned to Kunhang and said, “Wanna dance?”

And Kunhang, for some reason, said yes.

Dejun hated the phrase “one thing led to another,” but that was exactly what happened: grinding on the dance floor somehow turned into making out in the elevator somehow turned into Kunhang all but carrying him to his bed, both of them mad with lust and wanting everything to happen all at once. One thing led to another, and there was Kunhang in his bed and Dejun letting him have his way with him.

He almost wished he were a little more sober, if only so he could remember things better in the morning.

Dejun woke up without Kunhang beside him, but that didn’t bother him. The pleasant ache that came with a night as good as that remained, and as Dejun peered at his naked body in the bathroom mirror, so did the million hickeys Kunhang left scattered on his chest and thighs.

  


* * *

  


It was supposed to be a one-night stand. That was the whole principle of one-night stands, wasn’t it? They weren’t supposed to happen again. But this one did, which was funny.

Dejun met Kunhang at a mixer for science majors, and before Kunhang could even say anything, Dejun was already pulling him in. “Wanna dance?” he’d asked again. Kunhang laughed, something high and frankly ridiculous, but then all the blood in Dejun’s veins turned to fire the moment Kunhang said, “Of course, babe, if it’s with you.” That night they don’t even make it to the bedroom, Kunhang taking him against the wall, wringing moan after delicious moan from him. In the morning, Dejun woke up to a noise complaint pinned to his door. He couldn’t even care.

And then it happened again after a soccer game. Kunhang had played—extremely well, apparently, not that Dejun could tell if Renjun didn’t tell him that. He was in the stands, and Kunhang was doing a victory lap around the field, but it worked out anyway because Renjun was with him, and he had a pass for the team’s locker room for some unfathomable reason. When Renjun had dragged Dejun along to congratulate the team, it was all too easy to leave early with Kunhang with a different kind of celebration in mind.

Once it started happening, it didn’t stop. The night Dejun spotted Kunhang at an org orientation, it was almost a guarantee that the same thing would happen. Well, perhaps it wasn’t exactly the same thing—Dejun rode Kunhang this time, instead of Kunhang fucking him, and he reveled in the low, quiet groans Kunhang made, and kissed him deep and filthy as he came.

Hell, it even happened after movie night with Renjun and his friends. Once everyone else had fallen asleep, they exploited the fact that Dejun’s flat was only a walking distance away from Renjun’s. Sneaking out of the dark apartment, silent save for Mark’s gentle snoring, Dejun felt like he was in a movie—some kind of forbidden love story with him as the protagonist, stealing away at midnight with a lover holding his hand.

But this certainly wasn’t a love story, and Kunhang was only his lover in the most limited sense: only in bed.

 _That’s fine with me,_ Dejun thought wildly as Kunhang licked a stripe up his dick, _wasn’t that the sense that mattered most?_

  


* * *

  


So it was, if Dejun was keeping count correctly, a five-night stand. Five-nights stand? He didn’t know what the correct term for it was, but it sure as hell wasn’t dating. He wasn’t dating Kunhang, because it was too soon to be called that. Wasn’t there a whole three-month rule or something for this kind of crap? He wasn’t entirely sure.

“So you’re not dating,” says Yangyang.

“Yeah, we’re not,” Dejun confirms.

“Alright,” Yangyang relents. “Just checking.”

  


* * *

  


And the whole _not-dating_ thing would be fine, if not for the fact that Kunhang starts to surprise him.

The first time it happens, it’s after the sixth night. Dejun wakes up to an empty bed, but that’s normal. He’s used to the empty bed—he’s just grateful Kunhang tidies up as much as he can. Grateful he doesn’t leave socks or his underwear or the condom lying around.

Dejun gets out of his room only to be greeted by the wonderful smell of garlic fried rice and coffee. His French press is already running, and there’s a plateful of sunny side up eggs on the table. And Kunhang’s still there, wearing last night’s clothes, standing in front of the stove, humming a little pop song as he fries Spam Dejun doesn’t even know he had.

He doesn’t know what to do without breaking the moment. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to do anything. Is it par for the course for your five-nights stand—okay, six-nights stand now—to be cooking breakfast?

He’s relieved of making that decision once Kunhang turns, saying, “Good morning! I thought I’d cook some breakfast since you told me you barely ate anything last night.”

Dejun has to clear his throat before he can reply. “Thank you,” he says, quietly, politely.

Breakfast is silent, so the sound of the city filters in through Dejun’s open windows. The eggs are unexpectedly delicious, and so is the fried rice; he tucks in gratefully.

“So,” Kunhang starts. Dejun stares at him, curious.

“So,” Kunhang says again. “I never did get to ask you what your major was.”

“Oh!” The inexplicable sense of expecting something else disappears from Dejun’s mind. “I’m in my second year of biology. You?”

“I’m in the same year as you. I’m a math major. Hey!” Oops, Kunhang must have caught how Dejun’s face positively _curdled_ at that. Math? Is Kunhang a masochist? “It’s not that bad.”

“Integral calc damn near killed me,” Dejun says with feeling. He took it last semester—come to think of it, the lecture class for that was where he’d first seen Kunhang—and he scraped by with a grade of 76. Not his best, but he took it; he just didn’t want to see another integral sign for the rest of his life.

“At least you don’t have to take any more math classes, right?” Kunhang says, and put like that, it does sound a bit better. “And I bet bio’s plenty difficult, too. I’d never be able to memorize the names of all bones in a frog.”

The conversation over breakfast, over coffee, is light and fun. Dejun realizes distantly that this is the first time they’ve talked for so long without _anything_ happening and resolves to fix that. As Kunhang goes back to Dejun’s room to grab his wallet and phone, he gives him one last handjob and a heated kiss to match. You know, one for the road and all.

  


* * *

  


The second time is a lot stranger than the first. Dejun had only mentioned the university choir concert offhandedly to Kunhang, and he couldn’t even remember when he did. The only indication that Kunhang had heard him was his reply of, “No wonder you sound so fucking amazing,” before one thing led to another again.

So it’s entirely within reason that Dejun doesn’t expect him to come. Hell, he’d invited all his friends but only Renjun and Yangyang showed up.

Once the concert ends, Dejun retreats to the backstage with a pounding heart and shaking legs, only to get accosted by Kun who tells him that someone is waiting for him in one of the dressing rooms.

Thinking it’s Yangyang, Dejun enters the dressing room with no fanfare. What he finds instead is a huge bouquet of flowers—and Kunhang behind it, grinning.

“Hi, Dejun,” he says, apparently oblivious to how Dejun’s heart has just leapt all the way into his throat. He places the bouquet delicately in Dejun’s arms. “You did great. You truly do sound amazing.”

Hearing that conjures a different, decidedly dirtier image in Dejun’s brain, but he shrugs it off. He’s thankful no one else is in this room to see him blush. “Why are you here, Kunhang?”

“Renjun invited me, see,” explains Kunhang, “I just thought—you did come to greet me after the game, so I thought I could do the same?”

Oh. That does make sense, but it doesn’t explain why he’s here with a bouquet. All he has to do, really, is lead Dejun out the backstage and into either of their flats, because that’s what Dejun had done for him.

Still, Dejun’s mother didn’t raise an ingrate, so what he says instead is, “Thank you for the flowers, then. They’re beautiful.” At least that isn’t a lie. The bouquet is neat and lovely with white gardenias, white orchids, and blue hydrangeas. His plant taxonomy class comes rushing back to him: _Gardenia jasminoides,_ _Brassavola nodosa, Hydrangea macrophylla_.

When he glances up at Kunhang, the smile he finds on his face is bright enough to make him squint. “Anytime.”

Later, once Dejun is alone in his flat after a round of incendiary sex, he more closely inspects the bouquet. It really is beautiful; he thinks it’s such a shame that he doesn’t even have a proper vase in his apartment. Such a shame the flowers have to wilt.

A card falls out of the bouquet as Dejun tries his best to find something to put the flowers into. _Call me?_ A hurriedly written number follows that.

 _You know what,_ thinks Dejun as he saves Kunhang’s number in his phone, _this way I don’t have to accidentally run into him somewhere just so I can sleep with him._

  


* * *

  


That’s not exactly all that happens now that Dejun has Kunhang’s number. They fuck, of course—that’s still the crux of their relationship—but there’s something else now, too. Dejun is inclined to call it a friendship, but he and Kunhang never did have The Talk or whatever, so he doesn’t know where they stand. It’s a relief, somewhat. This way, without The Talk having happened, Dejun is free to think whatever he wants.

It's the last thing that Dejun could have expected, but Kunhang is easy to talk to. He’s nice and he always sends Dejun the funniest and strangest things. _Things_ ranged from memes to videos to conspiracy theory writeups and emoji-laden copypasta. Sometimes Kunhang would even send a math- or physics-related joke that would sail right over Dejun’s head, and then he’d have to explain why it’s funny. So Dejun sends him funny bio articles and puns as retaliation, and he’s pleasantly surprised when Kunhang brings them up in normal conversation, unprompted.

They trade stories about their daily lives. They bitch about the horrible professors in their respective departments. They trade videos of cute animals—cats for Kunhang and dogs for Dejun.

They text to meet up and fuck occasionally, and more often than not, Dejun wakes to Kunhang cooking breakfast in the morning.

In fact, they’re close enough now that when Dejun wins an extra movie ticket due to some promotion the cinema is having, his first thought is, _I wonder if Kunhang’s free right now?_

And so he calls him up, and Kunhang says yes, and he gets there before the trailers start.

“Missed me, did you?” Kunhang teases, plopping into the seat next to Dejun. He’s carrying a giant tub of popcorn and two drinks.

“Yeah, yeah,” says Dejun, and then he attacks the popcorn. Kunhang, smiling indulgently, lets him.

They’re watching a drama-romance film with an ensemble cast, and it’s something Dejun has quietly anticipated for months. Fuck it, okay, cheesy movies like these are the sort of thing he’s always liked. He likes how the wide-eyed protagonist and the cold leading man get together despite the fact that they’re dumb as shit and fight over the smallest problems. In a moment awfully like _The Notebook_ , the two of them have an argument and resolve it while the rain soaks everything. Dejun knows enough about films to know that this one is kind of bad, but that doesn’t shield him from being affected anyway.

And then the two leads are kissing, and suddenly everything’s okay, and Dejun cries. Why isn’t real life as simple as a movie? The last time he’d had an argument like this, it had ended in a break-up.

Alright, so maybe he’s still torn up about it. It’s just the tiniest bit frustrating to see things pan out well for the leads because that never happens for him. He’s the only one in the cinema crying this loud, and he’s so mortified, but the tears don’t fucking stop. He turns to Kunhang, and he must look terrible, because Kunhang starts talking to him in the sort of voice you use to communicate with wounded animals. “Dejun, baby, what’s wrong?”

At this, Dejun only cries harder. Kunhang is so fucking nice, he’s sweet and attentive and funny, and he’s still here with Dejun despite not even liking the movie. He’d seen Kunhang mouth “This is such bullshit,” every ten minutes or so, but now that Dejun is having a whole breakdown, he’s suddenly all hands on deck. He transfers his drink to the holder next to him and pushes up the divider between them before pulling Dejun into a hug. This is fantastic, because now that he’s being hugged Dejun cries even more.

“Dejun, Dejun.” Kunhang murmurs his name so quietly, but it’s the only thing Dejun hears. “It’s alright. I’m here. You don’t have to worry.”

He doesn’t quite stop crying then, but it helps. This is so fucking embarrassing. Kunhang’s hoodie must be gross with his tears and snot.

The movie winds down while Dejun still has his face buried in Kunhang’s chest, but he can’t even bring himself to be mad that he missed the ending.

  


* * *

  


The episode at the cinema goes unmentioned. It goes unmentioned on Dejun’s part because he’s so embarrassed that it had happened; it would probably kill him to talk about it. He doesn’t know why it goes unmentioned on Kunhang’s because he had asked some questions while he comforted Dejun. Still, if he wants to leave it be, then Dejun’s all the more grateful.

Despite this, the two of them still keep in touch. They usually talk through text, but recently they’ve started meeting up in their free time. And though they’ve never had The Talk about it, Dejun has decided that the two of them are friends. It’s a weird complication of their relationship that whenever they see each other in person, it more often than not leads to sex, but that’s okay. It just means that they’ve graduated from seven-nights stand to friends with benefits.

And friends get coffee with each other all the time, right? They'd compared their schedules the other day and found they had a common break on Thursdays. So Dejun suggested that they check out the new café in the Chemistry building, and Kunhang had agreed.

Dejun’s in line, reading the menu, when a tap on his shoulder makes him jump. “Jesus, you scared me.”

“The name’s Kunhang, not Jesus,” replies Kunhang, eyes twinkling in mischief. His long dark hair seems soft and touchable and he’s wearing a leather jacket on top of a green striped shirt and he’s just—ridiculously handsome. Like, ridiculously fucking handsome.

This thought clubs Dejun up the head, stunning him for a couple of seconds. This is the only explanation he can come up with as to why the next thing he sees is Kunhang waving a hand in front of his face. “Hey. Earth to Dejun. What are you gonna get?”

“The caffè macchiato,” Dejun answers, blinking. What the hell was that?

“Are you okay?” asks Kunhang, and then he runs a quick hand over Dejun’s forehead, then his throat. “Hm. You aren’t hot—”

“Fucking _ow_.”

“—to the touch! To the touch, I mean.” Kunhang raises both hands placatingly. “You’re super hot, okay,” he adds after a second. He’s not quite meeting Dejun’s eye anymore, and his cheeks are pink.

“Thank you,” Dejun says with a put-upon innocence. He follows it up with a shamelessly thorough once-over that has Kunhang’s blush deepening. “You know, you’re not so bad yourself, Kunhang.”

Kunhang clears his throat. “A-anyway! How ‘bout you get us a table, and I’ll bring the food? What was it that you wanted again, the macchiato?” He waits for Dejun’s confirmation before continuing. “Anything else?”

This time, it’s Dejun who gets shy. “I can’t possibly—”

“Nope,” interrupts Kunhang, popping the ‘p’. “You absolutely can. It’s my treat, don’t worry.”

Well. Kunhang doesn’t have to be like this, but who is Dejun to get in the way of free food? “If you insist,” he says, scanning the refrigerated display by the counter, “can I have a cinnamon sticky bun?”

“Of course.”

Dejun finds them an empty table, and he only has to wait a few minutes for Kunhang to arrive, carefully carrying the tray. On it are Dejun’s macchiato and cinnamon sticky bun, as well as a cup of tea and a slice of lemon tart.

“I’m trying to cut back on coffee,” explains Kunhang, noticing Dejun staring at his tea.

Once Kunhang’s settled into the seat in front of Dejun, it’s easy to catch up. It's a shock every time, how easy things seem to be with Kunhang. He hasn’t known him as long as he’s known Yangyang or Renjun, but he’s comfortable with him. These days, their talk isn’t just small talk. They’re on the level ten friendship type of things now: future aspirations, political leanings, opinions on the economy (and thank the heavens that he and Kunhang are of the same opinion on those things).

They’re in the middle of discussing modes of production when the café door is thrown wide open by the one person Dejun doesn’t _ever_ want to see again: Wong Yukhei.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, ducking his head. What the fuck is Yukhei even doing here? He’s a damn business major. He has no business being in the Chemistry building. “Fuck,” he says, once more and with feeling.

“What’s wrong, De—” Dejun covers Kunhang’s mouth with his hand.

“My fucking _ex_ is here.”

“Where?”

“Three o’clock,” Dejun says, watching Kunhang’s eyes dart over in Yukhei’s direction. A scowl darkens Kunhang’s normally bright face. “Can you hide me?”

A beat passes. “Alright,” says Kunhang, voice tight.

A few complicated minutes later, Dejun is confident that Yukhei won’t be able to spot him; he’s smaller than Kunhang, so his body blocks him almost completely. He’s even put up the hood of his dark grey and hopefully inconspicuous pullover.

He hasn’t seen Yukhei in weeks, but now that he has—now that the initial surge of panic has subsided—the outpouring of emotions that he’d thought would come _doesn’t_. It still stings, yes. But on a pain scale of 1 to 10, Dejun’s registering about a 4. He’d expected it to be at least a 7.

That doesn’t mean he wants to talk to him, though. And Yukhei, the extrovert that he is, would certainly chat him up like they're still friends if he were to spot him.

Thankfully, after he gets his drink at the counter, Yukhei leaves without incident. Once he’s out the door, Dejun lets out a sigh of relief so loud it makes a few heads turn. He sags, leaning against Kunhang.

It’s silent for some time. “So,” starts Kunhang, “bad breakup, huh?”

Dejun groans. “God,” he whines, “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

Bad breakup, worse relationship, but he’d been lonely, so it felt right. Thinking about it now, he can’t help but feel stupid. The whole affair was worse than the time he accidentally burned himself on a hotplate because he didn’t know it was on. There’s no way Dejun’s going to bring those details into the light right now. For one, he’s already getting better, so it doesn’t feel right to be picking at those wounds. For another, both of them have afternoon classes.

“You don’t?” asks Kunhang again.

“Yeah, I don’t,” Dejun all but bites back. Tired, he rests his head on Kunhang’s shoulder. He doesn’t miss the way Kunhang flinches. “I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t ask me why.” And his voice brooks no argument.

The rest of their time in the café would more accurately be described as a wait. They don’t talk as much as they did before Yukhei arrived. Dejun has the strangest feeling that he’d been given something a long time ago and only now has he shattered it.

By the time three PM rolls around, both of them are so out of sorts that they only notice it’s raining once they’ve gotten out of the café.

“Shit,” says Dejun, turning his palm towards the sky. It catches a few fat raindrops. “I didn’t bring an umbrella today.” He checks again, just to be sure, but the side pocket of his backpack where it should be is empty.

“You can borrow mine,” Kunhang says instantly, and okay, this is getting ridiculous. Kunhang’s always so nice, even after he’s snapped at him. It makes Dejun’s head hurt.

“Both of us have classes after this, Kunhang. Keep your umbrella; I’ll be fine.” Dejun peers at the dark sky. His next class, Introduction to Philosophy, is on the other side of campus.

Gently, Kunhang takes Dejun’s hand and places his umbrella in its grip. “Dejun, I know for a fact your next class is all the way in the Humanities block.” His gaze is so kind and warm that Dejun can’t return it. “Keep it, seriously.”

“But you—”

“My next class is just in Math,” Kunhang reminds him, and yeah, if Dejun follows his line of vision, he can already see it. Maybe Dejun’s the one being ridiculous here. “I’ll be fine.”

Dejun gives up. “Alright. But I’ll. You know.”

“What?” Kunhang’s still looking at him in that warm way, completely at odds with the cold storm winds that whip across their faces.

“I’ll return it to you,” Dejun says, “the next time we meet.”

There’s an odd weight to the sentence. They’ve met a few times before; why does saying this feel different this time?

“Okay,” is Kunhang’s only reply.

  


* * *

  


Yangyang and Dejun meet up again, this time in a restaurant on the other side of the campus, closer to the European Languages institute that Yangyang calls home. And Yangyang asks him again, “Dejun, are you sure you’re not dating anyone right now?”

“I’ve told you last time, I’m not,” Dejun says, punctuating his sentence with a sip of green tea. (He, too, had decided to give the whole cutting back on coffee thing a try.) “Why are you asking me this again?”

“Because, Dejun, Renjun tells me that they keep seeing you on dates with Kunhang like, everywhere.” Yangyang turns his phone towards Dejun. On screen is a photo of Renjun and Jeno, smiling brightly and throwing peace signs. The focus, however, is on Dejun and Kunhang in the background. Judging from what they’re wearing in the picture, it must have been from that time they went to the movies.

“We’re _friends,_ okay,” huffs Dejun. “It’s nothing serious. They’re platonic dates.”

“Okay, so you’re friends. Friends who go on ‘platonic’ dates regularly. I bet you have ‘platonic’ sex, too,” mutters Yangyang. Dejun doesn’t say anything. “For curiosity’s sake, how long has this been going on?”

Dejun has to actively think about it. When _did_ he meet Kunhang? The night at the party is a distant memory. “Like, two months?” Yep, that sounds about right. “Yangyang? What’s wrong? Why are you laughing, you—”

  


* * *

  


Dejun’s denial is proven right in the coming days. Kunhang’s messages slow down, his replies get shorter, and then eventually they stop coming. Dejun shoots him a text and gets left on read.

And so he was right, he savagely informs the little Yangyang he’s conjured in his brain. They weren’t dating, because if they were Kunhang wouldn’t disappear into thin air like this, would he?

Somehow, being right doesn’t validate him that much. Or at all. Dejun tells himself he doesn’t feel anything. They weren’t dating, were they? They were just people with a long and storied history in the bedroom. So what if they hung out on free weekends and breaks between classes? Those were obviously just for the sake of building up, preludes to the main event.

And even if what they had was a relationship, was it even advisable for Dejun to jump into one so quickly after his last crashed and burned? He counts the months since he and Yukhei broke up. Two months. Just two. In that time, he’d met Kunhang and spent enough time with him that even his closest friends were convinced that they were dating. Again, Dejun tells the little Yangyang in his head, they were not. And if that little Yangyang in his head were to ask if he missed Kunhang, the answer he’d give is a resounding _no_.

On the infinitesimally small chance that Dejun missed anything, it wouldn’t be Kunhang himself. It’d be his dick, maybe. His attentiveness. His soft, long-fingered hands. The way that he’d always, always ask what Dejun wanted, what he needed. Probably. That’s it, isn’t it? It’s not like he misses Kunhang at all.

It’s Friday night, and Dejun’s finally got enough time to breathe after a week crawling with exams. He sends Kunhang a text— _Hey, how r u? Haven’t heard from u in a while_ —and spends an hour waiting for a reply that doesn’t come.

“Goddammit,” he tells himself, and gets up. If he can’t have Kunhang, then he can have one of the million other hot boys waiting in dingy bars. It’s not like Kunhang’s the only attractive guy around. He changes into what Yangyang calls his “slut clothes,” and for once in his life he’s not going to deny that at all. He’s going to be a slut tonight, and it’s going to be fantastic.

He pregames with a nearly empty bottle of whisky that he finds in the back of his pantry and walks the short way down to the nearest bar. That the bar is so close to his apartment complex is something he failed to appreciate in the past months. Dejun swears that he’ll be more grateful from now on.

As soon as he enters, he orders a rum and coke, the short walk having lowered his BAC to a level he couldn’t work with. While drinking, he checks out tonight’s patrons. There’s a cute boy in glasses at his ten o’clock, and he’s already making eyes at Dejun. Beside him is a roguish handsome man studying Dejun with a hunger that makes him shiver. And when Dejun turns to his right, he catches a jock-type dude checking him out.

They’re hot, but they’re not _all that_. What _all that_ is, Dejun can’t adequately explain with his spinning, swirling head. He orders another drink, because fuck it, maybe if he drinks enough his standards will drop. He doesn’t even know what he wants; what right does he have to be this picky?

He keeps waiting for the moment he’ll want one of the men in the bar. Any moment now, he’d manage to look one of them in the eye and think to himself, honestly and absolutely, _Yes, I would love to get fucked by him._

Nothing happens. All he sees are men who are hot but don’t seem like they’ll fuck him _right._ He doesn’t know where the sudden judgment comes from, but the moment it manifests it sticks like cement in his head. No amount of drinking can change it. And certainly no amount of waiting can, either.

It’s at this point that Dejun gets up, wobbling slightly. Fucking hell. He’s going to walk the worst walk of shame of all—the one walked by people who couldn’t even get laid at a college bar.

  


* * *

  


Over the phone, Dejun says, “Yang, I think I’m going through sex withdrawal.”

“What the _fuck_ do you mean?” Yangyang replies. There isn’t much background noise—it’s either he’s mooching off in the library or his roommate who played shitty K-pop out loud all the time isn’t around.

“Duh, it means I haven’t had sex in like, three weeks.” And that wasn’t for a lack of trying. Dejun would find himself walking to the bar on his free nights. Every time, he’d try to get drunk enough to want someone else, but not drunk enough to be a vomiting mess on the floor. Maybe he hadn’t yet found the right balance or hadn’t yet determined which drinks would get him in the right state of mind, because every time he went out, he came back home disappointed.

“I see,” Yangyang says, voice heavy with sympathy. “What happened to your whole thing with Kunhang?”

“First off, we weren’t a thing. We weren’t anything,” Dejun retorts. “And second, I can’t get a hold of him.”

He’d sent Kunhang messages every few days. Obviously, they were ignored.

On the other end of the line, Yangyang hums in consideration. “That sucks. Well, seeing as it wasn’t a relationship, what’s stopping you from hitting the campus bars?”

“Trust me, I have.” He’d become quite close with one of the bartenders, actually, with how frequently he went. Sicheng made a lovely cosmopolitan and was nice enough to listen to his woes (or at least pretend he was listening).

“And?”

Real frustration colors Dejun’s voice as he says, “And nothing!”

“I see,” is Yangyang’s only comment, flat and inscrutable. It doesn’t help matters at all.

  


* * *

  


Beyond the lack of sex, Dejun thinks he’s starting to go crazy. He’s more or less accepted that he’s not going to get laid soon, managing to convince himself that it’s more of a want than a need. At the very least he could take that matter into his own hands—literally. But after four weeks of radio silence on Kunhang’s end, stupid crazy thoughts start taking residence in Dejun’s head. They’re stupid and crazy because they have _fuck all_ to do with sex, and wasn’t that the entire point of their relationship? The sex?

Four weeks in, Dejun is forced to admit that perhaps he’d been wrong on that count. What else could explain the fact that most things he missed doing with Kunhang didn’t even involve sex in the slightest?

Whenever he sees something funny online, his first thought is sending it to Kunhang to see if he finds it funny, too. Most of the time, he did. Their senses of humor were uncannily matched. There’s nothing sexual about most of the jokes and memes he sees online, but he still wants to send them to Kunhang anyway.

He Googles showtimes for the express purpose of finding a movie he could watch with Kunhang, getting halfway through the reservation process before he realizes they’re not talking anymore. It’s a shame, because there’s a new Marvel flick coming up, and Dejun knows Kunhang loves that shit.

One day, a girl walks past him, a bouquet of white flowers in her hands, and he’s reminded of Kunhang, not even a close friend of his back then, waiting for him in the backstage to give him a bouquet. He thinks of Kunhang remembering a detail he’d only mentioned casually, and it makes his heart lurch in his chest.

A cat café opens up on the same street as the bar he frequents, and he can’t help but think as he walks by that Kunhang would love it. The whole place is baby pink with cream accents; they probably sell fruit shakes and floral teas inside; _and_ they have cats. It’s a laundry list of the things Kunhang adores, and Dejun would have loved to take him there.

And alright, Dejun can admit that he misses the sex. With how patently good Kunhang was in bed, how could he not? It’s kind of ruined his life, actually. He imagines his future, being with a faceless someone in bed and thinking, _Kunhang could do this better_.

But the problem isn’t that he misses the sex. The problem is that it’s not just the sex he’s missing.

See? Dejun has gone crazy. Straight-up mad. He wants something that isn’t sex from his friend with benefits, totally missing the focal point of the phrase altogether, which is ‘benefits’ and not ‘friend’.

He rolls over in bed and spots Kunhang’s umbrella on his study table. Could they meet, even just once, so Dejun could give it back?

Dejun texts Kunhang that and gets silence for a reply once more.

  


* * *

  


In the end it’s blind fate that brings them back together in the same bar they had met before. Dejun doesn’t normally go to this one because it’s quite a hike from his flat. But he needs a change of scenery tonight because Sicheng’s already threatened to give him an AA flyer the next time he showed up. So now Dejun, in his slut clothes and with a bottle of Heineken singing in his veins, is back in this bar. And in a way, back where it all began.

It’s a good thing he only had one bottle, because if he'd had more, he would’ve thrown up as soon as his eyes met Kunhang’s. As it is, though, Dejun sees the exact moment recognition kicks in: Kunhang’s wide eyes get even wider, and he clambers over his friend’s legs, out of the booth, and out of the bar.

“No, Kunhang, wait!” yells Dejun, running to catch up.

Kunhang’s drunker than he is, so it doesn’t take too long for him to do so. Kunhang heaves a sigh. “Long time no see, Dejun. What do you want?”

Dejun, in all his rush to finally see Kunhang again, belatedly realizes that he has no plan at all. He doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t map out the exact details beforehand. So he just goes the honest route—if this is the last time he’d ever talk to Kunhang, then that’s the least he could do. Taking a steadying breath, Dejun meet’s Kunhang’s eyes and says, “I want you back, Kunhang.”

Kunhang flinches and drops his gaze. He sounds heartbroken when he speaks. “No, you don’t. What you want is a warm body, Dejun. And there’s plenty of them in there.” He quirks his thumb at the bar.

“Kunhang, I’m being serious. I do want you.” Dejun doesn’t know how he’ll explain his feelings, how he’ll get them to stick in Kunhang’s heart the way they are stuck in his. “The past few weeks have been so blank without you. I didn’t even realize how many things I wanted to show you until you were gone.”

“That’s impossible,” Kunhang mutters, so quietly that it almost seems like he’s talking to himself. “Dejun, are you sure this isn’t just the alcohol talking? Or the fact that you want to get over Yukhei?”

“I only drank a Heineken, so I’m pretty sure it’s not the alcohol.” Dejun laughs a little wildly. “And I don’t think it’s because I want to get over Yukhei. Alright—I’ll admit it was that, before. But that was just for the first time we met; I promise! I don’t like him now. I haven’t liked him in ages.”

Shit, Dejun hasn’t even _thought_ about him in ages, that’s how bad it’s gotten. He looks up at Kunhang now, really sees him, and his eyes have to adjust a bit because it’s dim. Only a slant of streetlamp light illuminates Kunhang’s face, but Dejun sees the tiniest bit of hope in his dark eyes anyway. “I’m sorry, Kunhang,” he says, and he means it. “I just didn’t know it before. But I’m sure now.”

“What do you mean?”

Here is it: the moment of truth. “I’m sure that I like you. A lot. And I missed you. Does that sound weird?”

Kunhang starts to sway, and Dejun has to hold him up. It’s stupid—he’s got just one steadying hand on Kunhang’s arm and he already feels like he’s about to faint due to the contact. At length, Kunhang says, “No, no. It’s not weird. I missed you too.”

“So why did you leave?” The more appropriate word would be ‘disappear’, Dejun thinks. Completely vanish in the blink of an eye, so abruptly that he was left wondering if those two months had been a hallucination. But he can’t bring himself to say that now, because everything hangs on this moment and he’d rather not have it blow up into another fruitless argument.

“I guess I have some explaining to do, too,” admits Kunhang with a scratch of his nape. “I just—I just felt like you didn’t like me as much as I liked you. I saw how you reacted when you saw Yukhei….” He trails off, his gaze faraway. “I thought you reacted like that because you still liked him, deep down. I thought I didn’t stand a chance. And I’m sorry I didn’t ask you either.”

“It’s okay, Kunhang.” Dejun’s voice is so quiet that it’s nearly a whisper. “Do you really like me?” He has to confirm it, he just has to ask.

Kunhang chuckles softly. “Of course, Dejun. I’ve always liked you.”

“Promise me you won’t leave again without saying anything?”

“Sure,” Kunhang says. Easy as ever, no hesitation at all. “As long as you promise me that, too.”

“Deal,” says Dejun, the words coming just as readily to him. Now, it’s all too natural to wrap his arms around Kunhang in a tight hug, and Kunhang softens against him, doing the same.

And this isn’t the picture-perfect reconciliation straight out of the movie that they watched together, because there’s still so much hanging in the air, undiscussed. A single conversation can’t settle everything once and for all. But it’s a start, and it makes things better. Dejun thinks it, feels it, says it aloud. It’s always better with Kunhang.

They stay there under the streetlights, and by the fondness in Kunhang’s eyes and the curve of his smile—Dejun is light enough to float off the ground any moment. In fact, he probably is, and the only thing keeping him tethered to the ground is Kunhang’s embrace. And then Kunhang kisses him on the forehead, as gentle as a butterfly landing, and Dejun might as well be in space. He certainly feels suspended in zero gravity.

He’s content to stay there all night, just _being_ with Kunhang, but the rain suddenly comes, and then they have to run as fast as they can to Kunhang’s flat. All the while, they laugh like idiots—and maybe they are, because who goes out without an umbrella these days? The rainy season is upon them, after all.

“I’m sorry,” Dejun says, tearing up with laughter as Kunhang’s rain-wet body nearly knocks him over. They’re under the apartment complex awning, thank fuck, because the rain is positively _crashing_ down now. “I didn’t bring your umbrella. I didn’t think it would rain.”

Kunhang’s hair is sticking to his forehead, and he has to push it back so it doesn’t poke him in the eyes. “You kept my umbrella?”

“Of course I did,” Dejun replies. “I was gonna return it to you the next time we met, wasn’t I?”

“You don’t have to,” Kunhang says, and he’s smiling like he’s telling him a secret. “You can keep it.”

Dejun smiles back. “Okay.”

With a warm hand on the small of Dejun’s back, Kunhang guides him into the building, into the elevator, and down the hallway.

In a few minutes, Dejun will be in Kunhang’s flat for the first time. He thinks of tomorrow and resolves to himself that it’s going to be him cooking breakfast for Kunhang this time around. He thinks of the cat café near his apartment, and how he’ll someday take Kunhang there. He thinks of the bouquet Kunhang gave him, and he knows that next time, he’ll get him flowers. He’ll even look up what they mean.

He thinks of all the things he wants to do with Kunhang—and all the things he wants to do _to_ Kunhang—and his heart swells like it’s fit to burst.

“Come on, let’s get in, I wanna change clothes,” Kunhang says as he unlocks the door and flicks the nearest light switch on. Noticing that Dejun hasn’t rushed right in like he has, he says, “Dejun? What’s up?”

Dejun blinks, and his thoughts grind to a halt when Kunhang takes his hand. “Nothing, nothing. I just feel really happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> If floriography is your thing, you’ll be thrilled to know that Kunhang’s bouquet means “secret love” ([gardenias](https://www.flowermeaning.com/gardenia-flower-meaning/)), “elegance and beauty” ([white orchids](https://www.flowermeaning.com/orchid-flower-meaning/)), and “developing a deeper understanding between two people” ([hydrangeas](https://www.flowermeaning.com/hydrangea-flower-meaning/)).
> 
> Also, I have never watched _The Notebook_ , so I apologize if the scene mentioning it doesn’t make sense lol
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
